


Heart Of Gold

by accidental



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, jethann's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 08:46:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11101062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidental/pseuds/accidental
Summary: There's a saying, in the Kirkwall alienage - Life's shit, and then you die. But Jethann left the alienage behind long ago, and he's pretty content with the way his life has turned out; he has nice clothes, a warm roof over his head, even a bit of money put aside for a rainy day. But when he meets Hawke, he's not so sure anymore. Over the years, the Champion's love for Anders changes Jethann in ways he could never have expected.





	Heart Of Gold

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Hollyand.

“Have you ever been in love?” Hawke asks him, out of nowhere.

Jethann shakes his head. He sits down on the bed, crossing his bare legs under him. He’d only propositioned Hawke out of habit, and he hadn’t really expected him to turn up that evening, a sovereign clutched awkwardly in his sweaty palm, blushing like a chantry virgin. Jethann had gone down on his knees and sucked the young man’s cock, and the whole thing had been over so quickly that he almost felt like he was cheating him. And now, Hawke just wants to get drunk and talk. 

Jethann hates it when they do that.

He uncorks a bottle of the overpriced house wine, and sips delicately at his glass, while Hawke knocks his back straight from the bottle like the uncouth Fereldan he is. 

“Don’t.” Hawke says. “ It’s awful.”

“So I hear.”

Jethann is wearing just a loose shirt, gauzy and cobweb thin, the delicate pink of his nipples visible through the sheer fabric. Beneath it; his thighs are smooth and pale, but Hawke makes no attempt to touch them. He’d tangled his fingers roughly in the elf's hair, and swore like a sailor as he came in his mouth, but he hadn’t touched Jethann’s body at all. 

“I take it you’re in love, then?” Jethann asks, because feigning a certain amount of interest is part of the job.

“I think I must be, I’m that bloody miserable.” Hawke leans back against the satin pillows, dark hair fanning out behind his head like ruffled feathers. He tilts the bottle to his lips again. “I think about him all the time. I ache to be with him. Is that love? You’re the expert.”

“Hardly.” Jethann has never ached for anyone. “I’m not even sure I believe in love,” he says. But it doesn’t do to get too philosophical, or too honest, in a job where they pay you to tell them what they want to hear, so he adds “He must be mad, whoever he is, turning down a handsome man like you.”

Hawke is undoubtedly handsome, sprawling, flushed and dishevelled, against the pillows, with his shirt unbuttoned and a trail of dark curly hair snaking down beneath the unfastened lacings of his leather trousers. Jethann is pretty sure Hawke doesn’t need to pay someone to suck him off; he’d just wanted something quick and uncomplicated, somewhere hot and wet to stick his cock after all that aching he’d been doing. After all, he thinks bitterly, it’s not really cheating, if it’s a whore.

Hawke sighs. “Maybe you could tell that to Anders.”

Ah, so it’s Anders that he has his eye on. Jethann knows the healer, all the whores do. He comes to the Rose once a fortnight or so with his ointments and potions, and sometimes he helps the girls out if they get into trouble. Once Jethann found himself on the wrong end of a customer’s fists - it was nothing really, a black eye and a loose tooth, he’d had a lot worse back when he was working the streets - and Anders had turned up looking like he’d been dragged from his bed, with dark hollows under his eyes and his hair a rat’s nest of wild tangles. He remembered the healer’s hands had been gentle as he examined Jethann’s cuts and bruises, his voice patient and kind despite the late hour and his obvious exhaustion. He could see how Hawke might be attracted to someone like that.

“He hasn’t turned me down.” Hawke frowns. “At least, i don’t think he has. It’s just… every time I open my mouth, something crass and ridiculous comes out of it - it’s like i’ve got a fucking deathwish.”

“Do you think he's interested?”

“When I flirt with him and he gets this look on his face… this little smile, like he’s surprised and delighted and scared shitless, all at the same time, and… ” Hawke shakes his head. “Then he backs off again, and I start thinking I imagined the whole thing.”

Jethann takes a swig of his wine. He wishes people didn't expect him to be some sort of relationship counsellor just because he’s a whore; he stopped being amused at the irony a long time ago, and now he just finds it tedious. “Maybe you should stop flirting, and just tell him how you feel?” he suggests. “What have you got to lose?”

Hawke looks doubtful. “ I’ve spent the last three years clinging to the hope that one day there might be something between us. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing that keeps me going. I don’t think I could bear it, if he turned me down.” 

Merciful Andraste. Jethann has to fight the urge to roll his eyes. “I think we’re going to need another bottle,” he says, and Hawke manages a self conscious little laugh.

“You’re right,” he says. “ I should probably just talk to him.”

Jethann shrugs an embroidered robe around his shoulders, and gets up to fetch the wine. “I hope it goes well for you,” he says, and he means it, as much as he ever means anything. 

By the time Hawke leaves, it’s getting late. Jethann bolts his door, and counts the night’s takings, putting Madame’s cut aside before locking the rest away in a wooden box that he keeps hidden at the back of his armoire. He changes the bedding, and stretches out, enjoying, as he always does, the little luxury of clean sheets and a soft warm bed.

He thinks about Hawke, all starry eyed, burning up as if want was a fever in his veins. Jethann can’t imagine wanting like that. He might have done, once, but living in a whorehouse is enough to make anyone cynical. 

The majority of Jethann’s clients are women of a certain age, married and lonely; making do with what they can buy. Given the choice, Jethann prefers the company of men, but you have to be pragmatic. Choice is an expensive luxury, and a warm roof over his head and food in his belly rank more highly on his list of priorities. Life’s shit and then you die, as they used to say back in the alienage.

He puts out the lamp, and buries his head beneath the pillow to muffle the squeak of the bedsprings in the next room. The sound of his own blood pulsing through his head is like the wash of the tide against Kirkwall's rocky shore. 

 

***

 

Months go by before he sees Garrett Hawke again, and then suddenly one night he’s back again, sitting at the bar, with a flagon of ale, and Jethann, with an eye for business, puts on his most charming smile and pulls up a stool beside him. “Hello again, handsome,” he purrs.

Hawke looks up from his drink, grinning broadly. “Believe it or not, I came here looking for my uncle - I know this is where the old sot spends my hard earned cash. But It’s good to see you Jethann; I wanted to say thanks.” 

“Oh?” Jethann raises an eyebrow.

“ I took your advice. I told Anders how I feel about him.”

“How did it go?”

“It was… It’s amazing, actually. Look, can I buy you a drink?”

Jethann looks round. It’s early, and the bar is quiet; he has a generous punter lined up for later on, so he’s not particularly desperate for business. He nods his head, and Hawke gestures to attract the attention of the girl behind the bar. “Not the ale,” Jethann cautions. “They water it down.”

“What about the whiskey? Is that any good?”

Jethann shrugs, and Hawke goes ahead and orders two shots. “I remembered what you said,” he tells Jethann, “about not knowing if it’s real. I wanted to tell you. It’s like a dream, but at the same time, it’s the realest thing i’ve ever felt.” A delicate pink washes over Hawke’s face as he speaks, and Jethann decides it’s rather endearing.

“I’m happy for you,” he says. It comes out sounding more sarcastic than it’s supposed to, but most things do; he can’t seem to help it. But if Hawke notices, he doesn’t show it. His attention is on Gamlen Amell, making his way slowly down the staircase, with a smug grin sliding drunkenly across his greyish features.

“Useless old bastard...” Hawke drains his glass and stands up in one smooth motion, and Jethann watches as he approaches his uncle. He can’t make out what they’re saying, but Gamlen is obviously in the doghouse. As the pair leave the brothel, Jethann finds himself thinking it’s a shame that Garrett Hawke isn’t interested in his services - it’s always easier when your customer is attractive. Ah well… he smiles to himself as he finishes his drink. Might as well go and make himself pretty for his favourite client - at least Remy is always appreciative of his charms. 

***

Jethann’s client that night is Remy De Sauveterre, a wealthy Orlesian merchant, still handsome despite his florid middle-aged complexion and thickening waistline. Jethann dresses up for him in seagreen lace, so tight it scores deep red marks on his skin. He paints his lips red. When the merchant asks Jethann to kiss him, he smears scarlet blossoms across the man’s chest and thighs, and afterwards, when he catches sight of himself in the mirror, it looks as if his lips are bleeding. 

Remy tells Jethann he’s beautiful. He gives him a gold ring set with pearls, and the next morning Jethann sells it for a sovereign in the market. He never keeps the things they give him. He doesn’t see the point.

***

“You’re such a pretty whore,” Serendipity tells him, with only the barest hint of bitterness in her voice. “I’d kill for that hair of yours.”

“There’s no need dear, it’s two silvers a bottle down the market.” Jethann yawns, and stretches his legs out in front of him on the bed. Red lantern light shines in through the leaded glass of the window, bathing the room in a warm rosy glow. 

“Ah well, what’s the point? It wouldn’t do anything for me.” Seri bares her teeth at the mirror. “I’m getting old, darling. A worn out old tart; whatever will I do?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Jethann pats the bed and she sits down beside him, passes him the bottle of cheap gin she brought with her from her room. It’s their night off, but they don’t venture outside. Where could they go, two elves abroad in the city after dark?

Serendipity smells of roses and patchouli. She stretches her bare legs out in front of her and wiggles her painted toes. Jethann knows what she means. Neither of them are out of their twenties yet, but it’s a cutthroat business they’re in, and there’s always someone younger and less jaded, waiting to take your place.

“You’ve got your handsome Seneschal,” he reminds her.

“Yeah, right.” The dark haired elf rolls her eyes. “ No, i’ve got it all planned out; five more years and then i’m leaving this shithole of a city. I’m going to run a little bar somewhere. Get a couple of cats and develop a drink problem.”

“Sounds good to me.” Jethann raises the gin bottle in a toast. Secretly, he thinks it sounds appalling, but it’s not like he has a better plan, and anyway, everyone knows whores don’t make old bones. 

“Do you ever think about going home?” he asks her.

“Why in the void would I want to do that? Don’t tell me you miss the ambience, darling.”

“It’s different for me. You’ve still got family there.”

“It’s not exactly like they’d welcome me with open arms.” Serendipity shudders, and Jethann looks at her, at the kohl smudged exhaustedly beneath her eyes, the faint dark shadow along her jawline beginning to show through her make up.

“You’re lovely, Seri,” he says. She laughs, and it’s a raw, harsh sound, like the bark of a fox, but her fingers creep into the palm of his hand and curl there, as light as a feather, and it feels like being touched by a ghost. 

He dozes for a while, and wakes up in the dark to the sound of her snoring. It’s hot, and he throws the window open, tilts his head to look at the stars. The night air carries the smell of the docks, like salt and shit and old blood. It settles over the city in a thick cloud, and when Jethann sleeps, his dreams carry him back.

 

***

 

The sea is slate grey where it rages against Kirkwall’s towering cliffs. It snarls and spits out white foam, and splinters ships in a lee wind, like rotten bones against the rocky shore.  
Further inland, beyond the docks, the water is sluggish and shit-coloured, thick with silt and decorated with a layer of oily, greyish scum.

When the tide goes out, the children gather on the muddy banks of the canals and tidal inlets that wind through Lowtown. They strip off their skirts and breeches, tucking their shirts into their smallclothes, if they have them, going bare arsed if they don’t. The mud glistens and shines in the sunlight, gold and grey and moss green. The smell of rotting fish clings to the inside of Jethann’s mouth, and makes him want to spit.

He jumps down onto the mudbank, and the thick clay oozes, clammy and shockingly cold, between his toes. Within seconds, he’s up to his knees. He takes a step and pitches forward, comes up coated in the stuff; a thick grey layer like a second skin. After a few minutes, the children are coated in it. They grin at each other through muddy masks, all eyes and teeth.

A city the size of Kirkwall generates a lot of waste. In Hightown, it gets gathered up, loaded into carts and then onto barges to be dumped in disused quarries further down the coast. In the less salubrious parts of town, most of the rubbish eventually ends up in the water, and gangs of ragged children scavenge the muddy riverbanks at low tide for anything they can use or sell. 

Jethann is small and light on his feet; he clambers over piles of jetsam, over the upturned hulls of sunken barges, black and slippery with rot. As he scours the banks of mud and sewage, Jethann keeps one eye on the channel of brownish water, watching for the moment when the tide turns.  
They all know stories, of children sucked down by the thick clammy clay, trapped helplessly while the tide washes in. Jethann manages not to think about it, most of the time, though sometimes it creeps into his dreams at night, and he wakes up retching and gasping for air. 

Ignoring the familiar sickly feeling of hunger that hollows his belly, Jethann pulls up scraps of wood and weed-tangled rag. He wrestles unidentifiable pieces of rusty metal from the mud to drag ashore and sell to the rag and bone men. Sometimes there are treasures to be found - copper coins, or broken jewellery, oysters to take home and add to the pot.  
Other things get washed up too, on occasion. Dead bodies are not uncommon, and one of the boys found an arm once, caught in the weeds and slime. It was bloated and fish belly white, mottled with purple bruises, ragged flesh flapping in the water like a frayed sleeve. The children gathered around, fascinated and horrified, as Jethann poked at it with a stick, unable to see it as anything more than just another scrap of detritus; rags and old bone.

The sun beats down, makes the mud glisten silvery grey, and something flashes at the corner of his vision. He struggles through the thick muck to the edge of the water, eyes darting around to see if anyone else has caught the same glint of gold in the sunlight. _Not coin,_ he realises with a pang of disappointment, as he takes in the shape of it, the chain clogged with mud and filth. Jewellery is notoriously difficult to sell; it’s impossible for a tattered, hungry looking elf to get a fair price.  
He shoves the thing down in the pocket of his shirt where no one will see it, and the gulls circle, screaming, over his head.

When the tide turns and the sun disappears behind the ramshackle Lowtown skyline, Jethann washes off the worst of the mud at the public well, and heads back to the alienage. His clothes cling to his damp skin and make him shiver, and the thin cabbage soup his mother makes doesn’t do very much to warm him.  
Something makes him wait until the others are asleep before he takes the piece of jewellery out of his pocket. He spits on it to rub it clean the best he can, and examines it in the thin grey moonlight that slants in through the bare window. The locket is in the shape of a heart, a cheap thing of tarnished brass, worth a copper penny or two at the most. The hinge is broken, and he pries it open with a dirty fingernail to reveal a twist of dark hair, tied with a scrap of ribbon. There’s something horribly sad about it, this keepsake that someone had treasured, now stained and broken, washed up in the mud. Jethann runs his fingers over the worn metal, and wonders who it belonged to, and how it was lost. He’s never owned anything pretty, and part of him wants to hang on to it, but he already understands that he won’t be allowed to keep it. Life is precarious, dirty and hard, and the best he can hope for is survival. Pretty things are not for the likes of him. 

He clutches the locket tightly in his hand beneath the threadbare blanket, while his little brother whimpers softly beside him, the hunger still gnawing at him even in his sleep. Jethann lays awake, and makes up stories in his head, about star-crossed lovers and hearts of gold. He wonders if anyone will ever keep a lock of his hair, to remind them of him when they are apart.

***

Anders visits the Blooming Rose every couple of weeks, and sets up shop in an unused bedroom, lining up his salves and potions on the dressing table. Although Jethann has no need of the healer’s services, he finds himself hanging around outside the room, curious about the man Hawke fancies he’s in love with. Anders reminds him of a scarecrow, his ugly clothes patched and threadbare, his copper gold hair hacked off carelessly, apparently without the use of a mirror. It’s simply unfair that the healer is still strikingly handsome, despite his criminal neglect of his appearance.

Jethann hears the rise and fall of laughter from behind the closed door, and then it opens and one of the girls, a rosy cheeked little thing who came over from Ferelden on a boat full of refugees, comes out, and nods to Jethann in greeting.  
Through the crack of the door, Jethann watches as the healer wipes his knife with a cloth. He runs his hand along the edge of the blade, and the air seems to shimmer beneath his fingers with an icy glow that is gone before Jethann understands what he’s seeing. A shiver ghosts the back of his neck as the realisation sinks in. Hawke must know how dangerous it is, he thinks; involving himself with an apostate. 

He must think it worth the risk.

When he looks up, Anders is looking at him, a hint of a smile in his amber eyes. “Can I help you?” 

Jethann shakes his head. “No, thank you. I was just...”

“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” the healer goes on. “ I’ve seen it all before, you know; I’m not likely to be shocked, and I promise not to give you a lecture.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“All right. Well, you know where I am if you change your mind.” He’s really smiling now, a kind, slightly lopsided smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. Jethann feels his cheeks growing hot, and almost hates himself for it.

*** 

Remy’s wife doesn’t understand him. 

He tells Jethann all about it one night, after they fuck; how he never wanted to get married in the first place, but it was expected, in a family like his; nouveau riche and desperate to carve out their place in fashionable Orlesian society.

“My mother convinced me it would be all right,” he tells Jethann, bitterly. “She assured me that once we had a child I could forget about that side of things, take discreet lovers. Everyone does it, apparently.” 

He plays with a handful of Jethann’s bright hair as he talks, winding it around his knuckles before pressing it to his lips. “She never mentioned it would be so lonely,” he says.

Sometimes, in these quiet moments, with his head resting comfortably against Remy’s shoulder, Jethann thinks he’s almost content. It’s not such a bad life, really; he’s warm and well fed, and he’s got a bit of money saved for a rainy day, and at least he never had to marry someone he didn’t want to, just for the sake of appearances. 

“Didn’t you ever love her?” he asks.

“I still do, in my own way, but I always knew she could never make me happy.” He sighs. “ She never made me feel like this.”

“Do I make you happy then?” Jethann doesn’t intend the question to sound quite so coy, but Remy laughs. 

“Oh yes, you make me very happy.”

“That’s good.” Jethann sits up, and smiles, cat like. He straddles Remy’s waist, and leans forward, his long hair falling over his face. “Shall I make you happy again?” he asks coquettishly. He can already feel Remy’s cock growing hard, pressing against his arse, and he wriggles, eliciting a groan from the other man. 

Remy reaches for him, the palms of his hands hot on Jethann’s waist as he pulls him close.

“I’d like that very much, my dear.”

***

The Rose exists in a world of it’s own, largely untouched by the vagaries of politics or public affairs. The bar always buzzes with gossip, but whatever happens in the outside world, nothing ever really changes. People always need whores. 

Over the next few years, much of the gossip involves Hawke. The man is an upstart, a parvenu, a bloody nuisance, always sticking his nose into things that are none of his business, and gradually making himself indispensable, in his own unconventional, often bloody, way. The nobles can’t seem to decide whether they should be impressed or scandalised. Jethann takes the more extravagant rumours with a pinch of salt, and finds it all rather amusing.

And then the Qunari march into Hightown.

When the screaming starts, Madame bolts the doors, and the whores stack tables and chairs against them. They huddle together in the lounge. Serendipity helps herself to a bottle of gin from behind the bar. 

“Darling, if I’m going to die I’ve got absolutely no intention of doing it sober.” Her face is drawn, her eyes stark against skin the colour of old bone. She offers the bottle to Jethann but he shakes his head. He wants to keep a clear head, quick reflexes; the idea of dying stupid and uncomprehending makes him shudder.

“I don’t think we’re going to die,” he says. “If they wanted to just march in and kill everyone, they could have done it years ago.”

“I wish someone would tell her that.” Seri looks daggers at a young woman crying noisily in Madame’s arms. “Anyway, i’m not taking any chances,” she says, grimly. She tilts the bottle to her lips and drinks. 

They wait, and after a while the streets outside grow quiet, and somehow the quiet is worse than the shouting. It gets dark, and nobody dares light a lamp, so they sit in the shadows. It’s awful, all this sitting and waiting, not knowing what’s going on; Jethann feels like a rabbit caught in a snare. Anything would be better than this

Eventually, there are voices outside, and someone hammers on the door with the news - the city is safe, the Qunari are leaving. It doesn’t take long before people start to drift in off the street, full of outlandish rumours - the Viscount is dead, beheaded by the Qunari; their leader has been killed in single combat. Nobles who witnessed the fight soon flock to the bar, needing to drink and talk the shock from their systems, and Garrett Hawke’s name is on everyone’s lips.

Jethann feels sick, listening to the details. He clutches at the bar, his knuckles white, and Madame frowns, and orders him up to his room. Whores fainting or throwing up is terrible for business. 

Serendipity joins him later, smelling of spilt gin and other people’s sweat. She brings him a mug of sweet tea from the kitchen.“You turned a particularly unflattering shade of green,” she tells him. “I always thought that was something that only happened in stories, people going green.”

“Apparently not.” Jethann is curled up in bed, with the quilt pulled right up to his neck. He can’t seem to get warm, and he wonders if he’s coming down with something. 

“Is there any more news?” he asks. “Is it true Hawke might die?” 

“If i didn’t know you had a cold little lump of black stone where your heart should be, i’d swear you were upset about it,” Seri teases. She sips her tea delicately. ”You sucked him off once, darling - you can’t get attached to someone on that basis. It’s not healthy.”

“I’m not attached to him,” Jethann protests. He sits up, and blows on his tea to cool it. It’s not that he has particularly strong feelings for Garrett Hawke, but it still gives him an odd, shivery sort of feeling, thinking the man might die. He doesn’t want him to die. Surely there’s nothing strange about that? He swallows his tea, and feels the honeyed warmth of it seeping through him, settling in his bones. The familiar sound of drunken singing in the street beneath his window is strangely comforting.

Seri strokes his hair. It’s a brief, awkward gesture, and Jethann doesn’t know how to respond. He’s suddenly very aware that she’s the closest thing he has to family, though neither of them would ever acknowledge it.

“Get some sleep sweetie, you’ll feel better in the morning.” She blows out the lamp, and Jethann hears the door close behind her. He lays in the dark and thinks of Hawke, lying wounded, the healer sitting sleeplessly by his side. The memories of his brother come back; the long unbearable hours watching and waiting, almost wishing it was over and done with. He remembers the weak yellow sunlight through the window, and the strange, still, feeling in the air, as if the world was holding it’s breath, waiting. Jethann had sold the heart shaped locket to buy medicine, a copper for a tiny twist of elfroot, barely enough to take the edge of his suffering. He’d held his brothers hand, and bit the inside of his own lips bloody to keep his helpless rage from spilling out. 

The lantern outside the window shines blood red, and the room is thick with shadows. Jethann takes a long time to fall asleep.

***

Garrett Hawke doesn’t die. Against all the odds, he recovers from his injuries and is declared Champion of Kirkwall. One of the girls buys a copper penny pamphlet describing the fight, and reads it breathlessly to the other whores. There’s a stylised woodcut illustration in which Hawke is recognisable only by his beard. 

In the years that follow, life in the Blooming Rose carries on as always; long periods of boredom and routine, punctuated by the usual petty thrills and dramas.  
Serendipity accompanies her Seneschal to a party, at Chateau Haine. It’s the first time she’s ever left Kirkwall, and she tells Jethann all about it as they share the plate of almond pastries he bought to welcome her back. 

“Hawke and Anders were there,” she says. “The pair of them were perfectly nauseating, whispering and holding hands… I felt sick just looking at them.” Seri wrinkles her nose.“ He scrubs up nicely though, the healer; it’s amazing what some decent clothes can do.” 

Jethann, curled like a cat in the wicker armchair, helps himself to another pastry. He desperately wants to hear more about Hawke and Anders, but he doesn’t want to ask.

“Honestly, you can’t imagine it,” Seri goes on. “The way these people live... There were cakes decorated with real gold. Did you even know you can eat gold?”

“Did you try one?” Jethann asks.

“Of course I did. It tasted like an ordinary cake.” Seri grimaces. “Almost choked on it, to be honest. Doesn’t it make you sick, Jeth? Our people have to beg and fight for scraps in the gutter, while people like them are eating fucking _gold.”_

 _Our people._ Something in him recoils at the words, and at the childhood abbreviation of his name. He doesn’t think of himself as belonging in the alienage. He doesn’t think of himself as belonging anywhere, unless it’s among the whores at the Rose. He’d always assumed Seri felt the same.

“It’s just the way it’s always been,” he says.

“But why?” Serendipity gets to her feet and starts pacing, back and forth between the bed and the tiny window, bare feet slapping against the floorboards. “Why does it have to be like that? Doesn’t it make you angry?” she asks.

“What’s the point? There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“ I heard enough of that bullshit when we were growing up.” 

“Then just be grateful we got out.” Jethann insists. “We’re lucky, Seri. We’ve got good food, nice clothes, a warm roof over our heads… ”

“ And look at what we have to do to get it!” Serendipity turns to face him, spidery black streaks of kohl trickling down her cheeks. Her hands shake, and she knots them in the fabric of her skirt to still them. Jethann has never seen her like this; stripped of her glittering sarcasm, her sharp-edged smiles. She is fragile and terrifying at the same time. He reaches for her hand, and she snatches it away. 

“I thought you were happy here,” he says.

“I was. I am… but it’s not as if I ever really had a choice. What else is there for someone like me?”

Jethann doesn’t answer. He knows she’s right; he’s always known it, but it hurts to hear her say it out loud. 

“It doesn’t matter;” Seri goes on. “It’s not about me. Look at me - can you imagine me gutting fish or taking in laundry? I was always going to end up like this, more or less. It’s the others I’m angry about, it's all the other children forced to grow up too soon, the children who never grow up at all...” 

She stops, and lets out a long, shuddering breath, visibly trying to pull herself together. “It’s getting late” she says. “I need to make myself presentable. You know how it is, people to see, dicks to suck…” She looks at Jethann through her ruined make up, and forces a smile. “Haven’t you got a date with the Duc de Soixante Neuf tonight?”  
Seri’s nickname for Remy normally makes Jethann laugh, but not tonight. He feels inexplicably angry with his friend, as if she’s broken an unspoken agreement between them. They never talk about the past, just like they never talk about all the times a customer calls them knife ear, or rabbit, or wants to play at being master and slave. What’s the point?

Back in his room, he sits in front of the mirror, and practices his smile until it looks real. By the time Remy arrives, it’s perfect.

***

“We both fake it,” Hawke says. “We give people what they want. You pretend you want to fuck them, I pretend I’m the Champion of Kirkwall…”

“You _are_ the Champion of Kirkwall.”

Hawke laughs, and there’s a bitterness in his voice that Jethann hasn’t heard before. He pushes his empty plate away and settles back in his chair, watching as Hawke finishes the last of his chicken and licks his greasy fingers before wiping them on the linen napkin.

Their paths had crossed again a year earlier, when Hawke visited the Rose on business and they’d found themselves sharing a drink and talking into the early hours, and somehow, since then, it had become a regular thing. They get food brought up to Jethann’s room, and they talk and drink, and occasionally, Hawke falls asleep sprawled across Jethann’s bed, leaving the elf to doze uncomfortably in an armchair. Hawke says he likes having somewhere to hide; somewhere he can shut it all out, for a little while, away from other people and their constant demands.

Jethann feels oddly comfortable around him. There’s something satisfying about seeing him stretched out on the bed, hearing the sound of his voice as he passes on the latest society gossip, or recounts one of his unlikely adventures. Sometimes Jethann almost forgets that he’s just a whore, and that Hawke is paying for his hospitality.

Hawke doesn’t want to fuck him. More often than not, he wants to talk about Anders, and Jethann always feels a pang of jealousy, because he knows nobody will ever talk about him the way that Hawke talks about Anders, their voice brimming over with love and pride. It seems as impossible as something out of a story, as if the two of them are characters from one of the tuppenny romances the girls pass around - the Champion of Kirkwall and his dashing apostate lover. 

“I’m afraid for him, all the time,” Hawke tells him. “I’m beginning to realise that’s what love is; being afraid.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Everything.” Hawke laughs. “There, I’ve just given away my deepest darkest secret. Now I'll have to kill you. ”

“It’s safe with me, I promise.”

Hawke is sprawled on the bed, as usual, oblivious to the muddy scuff of his boots on the quilt. “Thank you for letting me ramble on,” he says. “It’s a relief to be able to talk like this.”

Jethann pours Hawke a drink and sits down beside him. “You must have other people you can talk to. Your friends…”

“I can’t. For all they love Anders, most of them think he’s mad.”

“Is he?” As soon as the words leave his mouth, Jethann wonders if he’s gone too far, but Hawke just shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “He’s not mad; he’s right. You can’t treat a whole group of people like criminals, just for being how the Maker made them.”

“But you can’t go against the Chantry. It’s pointless to try.”

“Maybe. Maybe we just have to do what we can, however futile or hopeless it seems. If you sit back and do nothing, you’re still taking sides.”

Jethann thinks of Serendipity then, of the fury caged behind her painted smile, and his fingers tighten around the quilt.

“What if you’re not even sure who the enemy is?” he asks.

Hawke raises an eyebrow. “Then it’s a bit more complicated.”

Jethann is aware of Hawke’s eyes on him, like sunlight shining through brown glass. He lowers his head, coppery hair falling forward, hiding his face. “There’s a saying, in the alienage,” he tells him. “Life’s shit, and then you die.”

“Comforting, I suppose, if it’s all you’ve got. Or maybe it just excuses you from having to actually do anything about it.” Hawke leans back against the headboard, propped against the pile of mismatched cushions, and stretches his legs out in front of him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get so horribly serious…” He grins and reaches for the bottle of wine. “Now, why don’t you give me all the latest gossip on the Kirkwall nobility’s sexual predilections? You’d be surprised how often that sort of information comes in handy,” and Jethann laughs, and settles back against the pillows beside him, close enough to feel the warmth of Hawke’s skin, not quite close enough to touch.

Jethann wishes Hawke would touch him. Not necessarily in a sexual way, though he does think about that sometimes, about Hawke pushing him him down onto the bed, pushing into him, wrapping those big arms around him as he fucks him mercilessly. But sometimes longs to be touched so desperately, it feels almost like a sort of homesickness. He remembers being held, but he’s not even sure it’s really a memory at all. It’s the ghost of a feeling, so fleeting and formless it might as well be a dream, but he clings to it anyway. He closes his eyes and leans into it. 

At night, when sleep won’t come, he sits at the window and watches the bats fly out from under the eaves, and he imagines Hawke and Anders holding each other close, falling asleep in each other’s arms. There’s something comforting about it.

***

The months pass; Kirkwall’s sultry, stinking summer turns to autumn, and Jethann sleeps through the darkening days, barely leaving the Rose unless he has to venture to Lowtown to buy necessities, or to sell something in the market.

On Remy’s regular night, Jethann is waiting for him, with studs of emerald coloured glass in his ears, and fake pearls pinned in his hair. His gauzy robe hangs open, over pale skin dusted with gold, nipples darkened crimson with rouge. Remy glances at him, and then looks away again quickly, an expression of pain on his face..

“What’s wrong, darling?” Jethann goes to him, reaching up to wind his arms around the man’s neck, but Remy takes a step back. 

“Wait, Jethann… please. Sit down.” He grips Jethann’s wrists. “ I need to talk to you.”

“That sounds ominous.” Jethann keeps his tone deliberately light, but he does as he’s told and sits down on the edge of the bed. He watches as Remy picks up the bottle of wine from the dresser. “Have you got anything stronger?” he asks.

“There’s a bottle of gin...” Jethann gestures towards the cupboard. Remy’s hands are visibly shaking, and the neck of the bottle clatters against the glass as he pours himself a drink. 

“Remy, you’re frightening me…” Jethann laughs, but his mouth is suddenly dry.

“I’m sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to. I’m afraid my nerves are getting the better of me.” Remy swallows, takes a deep breath. “ I’m leaving Kirkwall,” he says. “The situation here is too volatile, the markets are unpredictable. I’m losing too much money.”

“Oh.” Jethann doesn’t know what to say. The first thing that goes through his mind is that he’ll be at least two sovereigns a week out of pocket, with Remy gone. But Remy is still talking. ”My wife has decided to stay here,” he says. “We’re going our separate ways.” He reaches for Jethann’s hand, and Jethann can feel the tremor in his fingers.

“Jethann, my dear, I want you to come with me.”

Jethann stares down at their entwined hands, at the gleam of the merchant’s rings in the lamplight. Remy’s grip is uncomfortably tight. “I don’t understand,” he says.

“I know this is just a business arrangement for you,” Remy goes on. “That doesn’t have to change, unless you want it to. You’ll be comfortable, you’ll have money. You’ll be free to do whatever you want. But I’d like it to be more than that, Jethann. I’d like us to be more.”

Oh Maker it’s awful. Jethann isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. He’s paralysed, not sure how to react or how he’s supposed to feel. This was the sort of thing he’d dreamed about, when he was younger and less cynical; a wealthy patron whisking him away from all this, setting him up in his own home, taking care of him. It was the chance of a lifetime.

“Say something, please,” Remy begs him.

“I can’t...” 

“You don’t have to make up your mind this minute.”

“No.” Jethann shakes his head. “Oh Remy, I can’t, I’m sorry.”

“I see.” Remy looks like he’s been punched in the guts, and Jethann’s chest aches looking at him, sadness and loss settling like a weight around his heart. He’s fond of Remy. A couple of years ago, this would have been more than enough for him. He wonders what is different now, and when he changed.

“Do you mind if I ask why?” Remy asks. 

The words don’t come easily to Jethann; he’s so used to telling people what they want to hear, to keeping his own thoughts and feelings safely hidden away, that the truth feels clumsy on his tongue. But he owes Remy that much, at least.

“Because I don’t love you,” he says gently. It makes him sad, saying it out loud. He wishes, more than anything, that he did.

“I know that, my dear. I suppose I was hoping it wouldn’t matter.”

“I didn’t think it did,” Jethann admits. “ I’m sorry.”

Remy shakes his head. “Don’t be; it was foolish of me to think …” The merchant stands up, straightens his clothes. He looks older, somehow, and a little lost, and Jethann’s throat feels suddenly tight. 

“You don’t have to go,” he says. 

“Yes, I do.” Remy leans down to plant a single, brief kiss on Jethann’s head. “I wish you well, my dearest.”

The sound of laughter drifts in from the corridor outside as Remy opens the door, and then he’s gone, and the room is silent. Jethann fancies he can hear his own heartbeat, like frightened wings against the inside of his chest. Oh, what has he done? 

Seri will be merciless.

The bottle of gin on the dressing table suddenly looks very appealing. Jethann picks up Remy’s glass and drains it. He’s tempted to smash the empty glass against the wall, but what’s the point? He’d only have to clean up the mess in the morning, and Madame would deduct the cost of the glass from his takings.  
He drinks quickly, with a sense of grim determination, until the bed starts tilting queasily beneath him, and as he starts to black out, he’s aware of the sound of his own voice, laughing, or crying; he’s not sure which.

***

It’s a long time before Jethann sees Hawke again. He’s sitting in the lounge with some of the other whores, watching as Serendipity wins at cards again, when Hawke strides up to the table. 

“Good evening ladies, gentlemen...” Hawke inclines his head in a polite little bow, as if he’s at a fancy Hightown soiree rather than a whorehouse.

Seri arches an exquisitely pencilled eyebrow. “Darling, if it’s ladies and gentlemen you’re after, you're in the wrong place.” 

“Forgive me Serah; whores and reprobates it is, then.”

Seri cackles.

Hawke looks pale and strained, his smile worn around the edges, and Jethann wonders if he’s drunk, or ill. Still, it’s good to see him; it’s always good to see him, and he can’t help smiling as Hawke casually rests a hand on his shoulder.

“Jethann, can you spare a minute?”

“Of course.”

“Only a minute?” One of the boys at the card table sniggers. “The Champion is in a hurry tonight.” Someone else snorts out loud, and Jethann can hear them giggling behind him as he follows Hawke out into the corridor and up the stairs. Naturally, the other whores all assume that Hawke’s visits serve the usual purpose, and Jethann never puts them right. He’s got his reputation to think of, after all, and being the Champion’s favourite is good for business.

In the bedroom, Jethann draws the curtains closed, and lights the lamp, bathing the room in an amber glow that only accentuates the bruise-coloured shadows beneath the other man’s eyes. It strikes him that Hawke is no longer the same man he was when they met. There’s a hardness about him, something forged in fire and pain.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. And then, because it’s the first thing that comes to his mind, “Has something happened to Anders?”

“No.” Hawke shakes his head. “Nothing’s happened. It’s just this Maker damned place…”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Kirkwall isn’t a city, it’s a fucking curse.” Hawke drags his fingers distractedly through his dark hair, leaving it sticking up in spikes. “Sometimes I think it won’t be happy until it’s taken everything I care about.” 

He looks ragged and worn out, and just for a moment, Jethann is afraid he might fall. He reaches for Hawke’s hand.

“Hawke… Garrett, sit down, please...”

Hawke sighs, and sits down heavily on the bed, his shoulders hunched and bent. “Anders is… he’s not alright. . I don’t know what to do to help him.” He looks down at the floor as he speaks, studying the slightly threadbare pattern of birds and curling leaves on the rug. He doesn’t meet Jethann’s eyes.

“I’d do anything for him; he knows that, Maker, I hope he knows… But he won’t talk to me. He’s got some ridiculous noble idea about honour, or loyalty, or… I don’t know; he’s always had a thing for abstract concepts. And I know it’s stupid of me, and petty, but sometimes I feel like I’m less important to him than his cause.” 

Jethann doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t want to know. But he can see Hawke is upset, and he needs to make it better. “You deserve better,” he says, and Hawke laughs bitterly, and shakes his head.

“He’s right though. Oh, and I could live with that, if I wasn’t so afraid for him. I’m so afraid of losing him, Jethann.” 

Hawke puts his head in his hands, and Jethann watches, horrified, as a tear falls from between his fingers. _This is what love does,_ he thinks, and it’s unbearable. He sinks to his knees in front of Hawke, and he cradles the man’s head against his chest and whispers _hush,_ feeling the tremors that ripple through him as if they were tearing through his own body.

It’s over quickly. Hawke pulls away, and sniffs, awkwardly rubs the tears from his face with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Jethann shakes his head. “I wish there was something I could do.”

“This city is falling apart, “ Hawke says. “Meredith, the mages… it can’t go on like this forever. You should get out while you can.”

“Mages and Templars,” Jethann says, dismissively. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

“It will be. If it comes to a fight nowhere in Kirkwall will be safe. There’ll be chaos.” Hawke unbuckles one of the pouches at his belt, and fishes something out. “I don’t know if I’ll see you again, so I wanted to give you something; for being a friend.”

He places something small and cold and glittering in Jethanns hand. The locket is oval shaped, decorated with a heart picked out in jewels like tiny stars.

“It’s gold,” he says. “I found it, somewhere or other. I’m always finding stuff. You can sell it, and use the money to get out of Kirkwall.”

There’s a lump in Jethann’s throat. “I don’t need it,” he says. “I’ve got money saved.”

“Then you should take it and go.”

“Where would I go? I was born here.”

“Anywhere.” Hawke shrugs. “Keep it anyway, as a memento.”

Jethann’s fingers curl, tight, around the locket. “What are you going to do?” he asks.

“A friend of mine is trying to get hold of a ship… I need to get Anders away from Kirkwall. I thought I could keep him safe, but I can’t.” Hawke sighs, and drags his fingers through his hair. “If you value a quiet life, don’t ever fall in love,” he says. 

“I wasn’t planning to.” Jethann grins, but his chest feels suddenly tight.

“You never know… Someone might still change your mind.” The corners of Hawke’s eyes crinkle warmly as he speaks, and Jethann looks away.

“I’m afraid I’m a hopeless case.”

It’s getting late, and the shadows in the little room have deepened. The sound of laughter drifts up, jarring and dissonant, from the bar below.

“I should go, “ Hawke says. “I just wanted to say goodbye, in case I don’t see you again. Thank you Jethann, for being a friend.” He clasps Jethann warmly by the wrist, and Jethann wonders, briefly, if Hawke will embrace him. He doesn’t think he can bear it, if he does. 

“Do you ever regret it?” he asks. “Falling in love?”

Hawke’s smile, when it comes, is fierce, fearless; sharp as the flash of a blade. “Not for a single moment,” he says.

And then he’s gone, The locket is still clasped in Jethann’s fist, his palm scored with red lines where the chain has dug into his skin. The tiny stones glitter in the lamplight. He pries the catch open, and is vaguely disappointed to find nothing inside. His own heart feels hollow too, as he hides the locket away in the box in the back of the wardrobe. 

_Nothing has changed,_ he tells himself. He'll do what he always does; he’ll paint his lips, and get on with business. Maker knows, he doesn’t care enough to leave. 

***

A few days later, the Chantry explodes. 

The sky, through the windows of the brothel, turns the colour of old blood. It feels as if all the air has been sucked out the world, and then it rushes back in, in a wild tidal wave of heat and sound that shakes the ground and shatters the glass in the upstairs windows. The air fills with thick dust.  
The whores and their customers gather in the bar. They mill around aimlessly, their voices brittle and chattering, their faces blanched and raw with shock. One of Madame’s bouncers leaves, saying he’s going to find out what’s happening, and soon after he goes the screaming starts in the street outside. He doesn’t come back.

There’s no sign of Serendipity anywhere. Jethann runs up the stairs. Her room is empty and abandoned looking, the yellow silk curtains flapping wildly against the broken glass. In the hallway a young elf sits nursing a bleeding arm, his face streaked with shocked, silent tears. Jethann crouches beside him, looks into his eyes. His pupils are like holes.

“What’s happening?” he asks.

“I don’t know; something bad. What did you do to to your arm?”

“Glass. From the window.” The boy starts to shake violently. “I saw the explosion, the light in the sky...”

The fear in his voice makes Jethann shudder. “Go downstairs and find Madame Lusine, she’ll bandage your cut for you.”

“Are you coming with me?”

Jethann shakes his head. His heart is beating frantically. _Whatever’s going on out there, I’m not going to die here like a rat in a trap._

When the boy has gone, he goes to his room and puts on his outdoor boots. He pushes open the window frame, and the cracked glass splinters and falls like rain onto the cobbled street below. He climbs out onto the ledge, and lowers himself gingerly, clinging by his fingertips to the windowsill. The traumatised elf’s words echo ominously in his head, but it’s too late to turn back now.  
He closes his eyes and lets go.

The sky is choked with ash, and there’s a strangeness in the air, a prickling feeling that goosepimples his skin and makes the hairs on his arms stand up. It doesn’t sink in immediately, the gaping hole in the skyline, where the Chantry tower should be. When it does, it seems absurd, incomprehensible. The impossibility of it makes his stomach heave.

Nothing he sees makes sense. Jethann had heard the explosion himself, he’d felt the ground shake with the force of it. Surely the streets should be littered with debris? There’s broken glass everywhere, and chunks of fallen masonry, shaken loose by the blast, but nothing to suggest the destruction of such a huge building. It’s almost as if the Chantry has vanished into thin air. 

Small fires have broken out here and there, and plumes of smoke snake up into the sky, merging into the clouds of dust to form an unnatural twilight. The streets are full of people, hurrying this way and that, their faces tight and pale with shock. The sense of panic in the air is infectious; it grabs Jethann by the throat and doesn’t let go. A scream echoes in the distance, and he breaks into a run, stumbling towards the steps that lead down into Lowtown, through the narrow cuts and.alleys that wind towards the docks.

It’s not until he gets there that he realises where he’s running to.

***

The alienage is on fire. 

Jethann sees the smoke before he gets there, billowing thick and black over Lowtown.The high wooden enclosure that cuts the ghetto off from the rest of the city is completely burnt away in places, reduced to piles of charred debris. Sparks dance on the wind.

Jethann runs into the chaos, and the heat breaks over him like a wave. 

The fire rages through the crowded tenements, and some of the elves have formed a chain, passing buckets of water from the well in an attempt to douse the flames. 

“Jethann! What in the void are you doing here?”

Serendipity is wild eyed and dishevelled. Her dress is hitched up and her bare legs streaked with mud and ash, and she looks like she did when they were children together, before she realised the sailors in the dockside inns would pay far more for her skinny little boy body than she could ever make from hawking oysters. She’d had a different name in those days, but the same fierce light had burned in her hazel eyes, and the memory of it is suddenly so vivid that, for a moment, Jethann feels ghostly and unreal, as if the years that have passed were just a dream. 

“I want to help,” he shouts above the roar of the flames.

Seri nods wordlessly. Someone presses a shovel into his hands, and for the next few hours there’s no time to think about anything. Sweat drips from his hair as he shovels piles of smouldering debris away from the buildings in an attempt to stop the flames from spreading. His eyes stream, his throat feels raw from breathing in smoke. After a while, the fire starts to seem almost like a living thing, a hungry, malevolent intelligence, bent on destruction. Sparks rain down, scorching holes in Jethann’s shirt and blistering his skin, but he barely feels them. He keeps on shovelling, and dragging burning timbers out of the way in what feels like a futile attempt at damage limitation. 

Finally, when the muscles in his arms are shaking with exhaustion, someone clasps his shoulder, tells him “You can stop now, lad.” The last of the fires is out. Jethann looks around in disbelief, unable to comprehend the scale of the destruction, the collapsed roofs and soot-blackened walls , the buildings reduced to piles of glowing embers. A thin, cold drizzle of rain starts to fall, and it feels like a blessing where it hits his face.

It’s dark when he finds Seri again, in the square by the Vhenedahl. Families displaced by the fire have gathered there, and some of them have started to build makeshift tents out of timbers dragged from the debris, draped with curtains or bedsheets, anything they can find to keep the rain of their heads.  
Someone has started a cooking fire, and there’s a cauldron of watery soup on the go. Seri sits huddled over it, her hair hanging in rats tails down her back, a filthy blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Jethann sits down beside her, among the ruins. 

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“I pulled a dead child out of a burning building,” Seri says grimly. “I’ve had better days.”

“What happened?”

She shrugs. “The Chantry exploded, fighting broke out. A bunch of bastard shem decided to take advantage of the chaos, show the filthy knife ears what’s what.”

Jethann coughs, and spits up black phlegm. Someone passes him a bottle of water, and he drinks and it feels like swallowing knives. Seri watches him through narrowed eyes. 

“They’re saying it was Hawke and Anders,” she says.

“Who’s saying?”

“Everyone. They’re saying Anders wanted to start a war. They fled to the Gallows to defend the mages.”

Jethann shivers. 

An exhausted hush has fallen over the place, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the sound of a baby crying, a father’s soft voice whispering comfort. A ragged dog wanders over to settle by the fire, curling up and tucking it’s nose into the bushy fur of it’s tail for comfort. 

Seri pushes her damp hair back behind her ears. “I’ve been coming back for a while now,” she says. “I bring food, medicine… whatever I can. I couldn’t tell you. I thought you’d despise me for it.” 

Jethann doesn’t know what to say. He looks up, at the branches of the tree silhouetted against the swirling sky, the invisible stars. The murmur of soft elven voices washes over him in the dark. 

“It feels like I never really left,” he says.

“This place is part of us,” Seri says. “It’s in our blood and our bones.”

The dog at his feet whimpers in it’s sleep, and Jethann reaches down to stroke it, buries his fingers in the thick coarse fur. The smell of soup bubbling in the pan makes him sick with hunger, but he can’t face the thought of eating. 

“We might as well go,” he says. “There’s nothing more we can do tonight.”

“You go then. I’m staying here.” Serendipity looks up, and her face is streaked with mud and blood, the stubble on her jaw showing stark in the firelight. She’s more beautiful than ever. “Tell Madame I’m not coming back,” she says. 

Jethann starts to protest, and then changes his mind. He nods, and leaves without saying goodbye.

***

The city is like something from a nightmare, mapped out in blood and scattered fires, the streets littered with corpses. Jethann is glad of the darkness.  
Thankfully the Rose appears undamaged, though most of the whores have fled. Jethann locks the door of his room behind him. He scrubs the soot off his face and rinses the ash from his hair, but the smell still clings to him.  
He takes the locket from it’s hiding place, and rubs the pads of his fingers over the surface, as if he’s making a wish, and for a moment, he’s carried back to the river’s edge, to the stench of mud like blood in his nostrils, and the sound of the gulls screaming as they circle overhead. Maybe he’ll take Hawke’s advice, he thinks; take his money and start again, somewhere else. He could go anywhere, do anything. He doesn’t have to be a whore. He’s getting too old for it, anyway. 

Aching and dizzy with exhaustion, Jethann crawls into bed. He thinks of Hawke and his Anders, imagines them sleeping safely in one another’s arms, somewhere far from the city, beneath the stars. 

It’s still dark when he wakes. He dresses by the flickering light of a single candle. He takes out his money and empties it into a leather bag, and then he fastens the locket around his neck.  
There’s no one there to see him leave, nobody to say goodbye to. He pulls the door closed behind him, and the sound of it echoes in the early morning air .

The sun comes up over Kirkwall’s burnt and bloody streets, as Jethann makes his way back to the alienage.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr as dorianpink.


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